Paper & Ashes

My favorite simile of the day comes courtesy of PAINT IT BLACK:

"Birds flew across the windshield like a page of music."

Janet Fitch's second novel will be the next book review I post, but until then, here are two short, older reviews of books I count among my favorites.


ANGELA'S ASHES:



The BEST book I have ever read. An amazing, overwhelmingly emotional and masterful story of a young man's impoverished, hard and oppressive life. Tracking the author's life from the age of 2 to 17, memoirist and Pulitzer-Prize winning Frank McCourt brings us directly into this world, face-to-face with the dirt, the poverty and the struggle of a family trying to survive. What's so stunning about this book is not that the author survived such a traumatic upbringing to actually tell his tale, but that he remembers and relates the episodes of his childhood from the perspective of a child. So even though we "hear" the adults bitching and moaning about their lots in life, and see McCourt's drunken father as he drinks away the family's food money, we "live" the experiences through the wonder and magic and innocence of a boy who knows pain but also the simple joys of living.

One minute the book brings you to the verge of tears -- the next, you're laughing out loud from McCourt's playful, marvelously funny prose. If you've only seen the movie (which I haven't, but hear is terrible), don't hold it against the book. My favorite book and one I recommend to everyone who cares to listen.


THE HOUSE OF PAPER:



A little gem of a book, revolving around love not only of the written word, but of the compact, paper-bound package that it comes in. Written by Carlos Maria Dominguez in Spanish and translated into English, the tale explores the various stages of love, obsession, mystery and heartbreak that accompany a life devoted to the collection of books.

The first-person narrator's academic colleague and part-time lover has been tragically run over by a car while carrying a book of Emily Dickinson poems, an event that triggers an odyssey of sorts and leads the narrator and reader both into a world of literary delight and compulsion.

A short but sweet ride, from a writer who obviously holds a lot of appreciation for the lives of novel readers, as well as a bit of ambivalence concerning the acquisition and collection that goes into creating the abundant personal libraries so many of us have in our homes. The care and feeding of these physical housings of imagination and knowledge tread the fine line, Dominguez posits, between respectful, loving adoration and obsessive compulsion. There are also a number of really interesting, evocative drawings by Peter Sis that accompany the text and adorn the front and back cover of this book about dreams and nightmares.

Postcards and Corduroy

My favorite simile of the day, this one from Junot Diaz' new novel, THE BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR WAO:

"For Oscar, high school was the equivalent of a medieval spectacle, like being put in the stocks and forced to endure the peltings and outrages of a mob of deranged half-wits..."


Since the tone (so far that I've read) of Diaz' novel is comic, I figured I'd post a couple of reviews of books I found particularly amusing, even outright fall-on-my-face funny. Both reviews are from books I read in 2004 and painstakingly re-created here for your own amusement.


DRESS YOUR FAMILY IN CORDUROY AND DENIM:




Another terrific slew of non-fiction essays by Mr. NPR himself, David Sedaris. Unlike his last book, "Me Talk Pretty One Day" -- which only spent half the book on his family (the other half on Paris and his boyfriend Hugh) -- this one is almost all about the Sedaris family, from Mom & Pop to Paul, Amy, Lisa, Gretchen and Tiffany. Culled from his contributions to Esquire, GQ, The New Yorker and "This American Life," the collection of 22 essays is a quick, satisfying read.

The first two pieces, "Us & Them" & "Let It Snow" get the raucous laughter flowing immediately. "Full House" is pervy but fun, reminding me a bit of A.M. Homes's style of writing and subject matter. "Slumus Lordicus" & "The Girl Next Door" are both serious departures for the writer, and they both strike a somber, unforgettable note. "The End of the Affair" is a sweet little morsel of a tale about Hugh & David seeing the Neil Jordan film in Paris.

A few of the siblings get starring roles in a few of the stories, all of which are very fun and tell us a lot about why Sedaris possesses that particular temperament and twisted sense of humor -- Lisa in "Repeat After Me"; Paul in 2 stories, "Rooster at the Hitchin' Post" & "Baby Einstein"; and his completely wacked out younger sister Tiffany in "Put a Lid On It."

A definite recommend and a summer fave.



POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE:




Carrie Fisher's first novel is a fun, quick read, full of the actress's trademark wit, charm and bluster. The story of Suzanne Vale, a thinly "veiled" (Valed?) version of Fisher herself, starts in a rehab facility, shortly after she's had her stomach pumped. Journal entries tell her tale, then share space with Alex's "running monologue in his head" -- a TV writer with a bad cocaine habit who finally goes over the edge one night doing coke, ecstasy AND heroin. His portion of the book is manic, frantic and fall-down funny. Once Vale gets out of the center, the narrative shifts to a strictly dialogue section, as Suzanne gets involved with a Hollywood producer and sex-addict who can't find time for commitment, only sex and movies.

The last shift in narration comes as Suzanne starts fiming a "B" action/comedy flick, and the story of her life is told in third-person. Here the dialogue starts to feel too "clever" and "glib," but the emotional resonancy climbs up a notch and the book sails through to a satisfying ending. Not as brilliant as her second book, "Surrender The Pink" (one of my favorite books), but well worth the time.

Lush Trains on the Mystic River

I’d like to start this one off with my favorite simile of the day, from Richard Price’s new novel, LUSH LIFE:

“Directly inside, one of the Yemeni brothers, Nazir, tall and bony with an Adam’s apple like a tomahawk, was playing cashier-doorman…”


Now, two more book reviews -- one you've probably heard of and seen the movie version, the other probably not so much. Both books I read back in 2003 and 2004, respectively, but they seem to fit in with Price and his street-savvy, crisply written style. Dennis Lehane's MYSTIC RIVER is up first, followed by Pete Dexter's TRAIN. Both reviews are fairly short and painless.


MYSTIC RIVER:





A pretty involving book, from beginning to end. Lehane's writing is lean, crisp and very readable. The three main characters are very distinct, even though Sean does lose a bit of his "voice" going from boy (in the prologue) to man (as a cop in the mystery). I figured out the two main "mysteries" solutions earlier than I would have liked, which gave the last third of the book a bit of a predictable nature, but overall I enjoyed the book. A lot darker than I expected, more raw and gritty than I would have been led to believe, based on the overwhelmingly positive reactions I got from (mostly) older women who had read it and saw me with the book throughout the week.



SPOLIER ALERT! If you haven't read the book or seen the movie yet, you may not want to go on with this review.



I love that Jimmy starts off a brutal, wicked guy and, try as he might, never quite becomes redeemable or even that particularly likeable. Even with the compassion built-in with the death of his daughter (a great device that Lehane uses to all kinds of wonderful effect, both story-wise and character-wise), Jimmy still can't escape his own evil nature and he slinks back to join the slime he came from by the end.

Dave is a terrific character, although the whole "Boy" thing isn't explored as much as I thought it could have, but his demise is played out very nicely. For a few pages, there's the idea that he may not get whacked, but then the brutal nature of the antagonist comes shining through and Dave feeds Mystic River with his body and soul.

Depressing stuff, but the best scene in the book has to be the tense, violence-in-the-air conversation between Jimmy and father-in-law Savage at his daughter's wake. Great stuff there. The wrap-up scene at the parade is also nicely played, leaving all kinds of doors open for another book.


TRAIN:




One of the most terrific opening hundred or so pages of a book I've read in a while. The main characters, Packard and Train, are more real and true than any literary creations I've come across in some time. The prose and tone reminded me of James Ellroy mixed with Elmore Leonard, but with more heft, more grounded reality to the characters and the situations.

Unfortunately, about halfway through the novel, things start to fall apart. The situations that were set up early already begin to pay off, with nothing majorly interesting set up in their place. Then the whole thing meanders. Packard is never explored enough for empathy to build or interest to last about him, so whenever he's around, I wished to be in Train's world instead. The writing, no doubt, is fantastic, and I would definitely read another of Dexter's book, most likely "Paris Trout" but I thought this would be the best book I'd read in a while -- instead, it turned out to be only half a great book. Which, by all accounts, ain't half bad.